


The Glue That Holds Civilization Together

by AnonEhouse



Category: Kung Fu Panda - All Media Types
Genre: Apocalypse, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 09:40:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11010831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonEhouse/pseuds/AnonEhouse
Summary: It's said that civilization is only nine meals from anarchy. This is apparently true for pandas as well as humans.





	The Glue That Holds Civilization Together

(If you are reading this on any PAY site this is a STOLEN WORK, the author has NOT Given Permission for it to be here. If you're paying to read it, you're being cheated too because you can read it on Archiveofourown for FREE.)

 

The noodle shop was empty. Po looked around, feeling his stomach drop as if his whole world had fallen away from him. Or as if he was really, really hungry.

Ping looked at him sadly before taking off his noodle bowl hat and his apron with the store's generously full dumpling soup bowl logo. He sniffed, and then blew his beak in his apron. "I wish I could learn to make tofu," he said, trying to smile, but his beak wobbled. 

"It was your dream, once," Po said hesitantly.

"I'm too old to learn a new trade," Ping said after a moment. "Besides, the rhinos were starving, and they ate up the whole soybean crop. There's not enough in China to feed them now."

"Yeah." Po scratched at his empty belly. "I heard they're moving to Africa." He sighed and tried not to look outside the shop at a rabbit family down on all fours eating weeds. They weren't even wearing clothes. They hardly looked like people any more. Pigs were in the forest, digging up roots with their tusks. He'd seen Master Crane swallow a lizard, and the look of shame in his eyes was terrible, but not so horrible as the look Tigress gave a chubby piglet before she tore off her robes and fled from the valley in search of food she'd never met. "I'm the Dragon Warrior, I'm supposed to protect the valley."

Ping flapped his wings and hugged Po's less chubby than normal belly. "Kung fu can't fight hunger." Ping's eyes welled up with tears. "There will be no noodles and no dumplings, ever again. Only wheat will work, because of the secret ingredient."

"I thought you said there was no secret ingredient?" Po said around a mouthful of very dry and woody turnip.

"I didn't want you to feel bad, so I made up that story. The secret ingredient is wheat gluten. Nothing else sticks together and stretches, and is delicious."

Master Shifu came into the shop and sat next to Po. They both looked at him, hopefully. He shook his head. "Master Oogway's spirit spoke to me."

"Yes?" Po and Ping said at once when Master Shifu didn't continue. He was picking at a bamboo shoot, pulling off the most tender leaves and chewing on them, contemplatively.

He swallowed. "He says not to blame the wheat farmers. They spent thousands of years selecting only the best strains to breed. How could they know they bred out resistance to this disease? Master Oogway says the wheat will come back."

"Well, that's good news, isn't it?" Po said, spitting out the last bits of turnip. "How long? A year? Two? I could stand to lose a little weight," he joked.

Shifu held out the bare bamboo stalk to Po. "As long as it took to create in the first place."

Thousands of years. Po took the bamboo stalk, and bit into it. "You know, bamboo doesn't taste so bad."

**Author's Note:**

> For the 'Technology Fails' square in my Tic Tac Woe bingo card.
> 
> I mentioned to a friend that I was trying to think of a fandom to write for the 'technology fails' prompt. I didn't want to repeat any of the seven different fandoms I'd already used for my first seven apocalypses, but I wanted a fandom I was reasonably familiar with. So I said _Maybe Eureka? I have got my DVDs around somewhere... or Back to the Future? Firefly?_
> 
> _Kung Fu Panda?_
> 
> _Wow, I'm really reaching now. :^)_
> 
> And my evil, evil friend said, __
> 
> _I dare you to use Kungfu Panda._
> 
> I watched the DVD today and I even watched a couple of the extras, including a bit where the Iron Chef host narrates while a chef turns a mass of wheat dough into noodles just by pulling, twisting, and smacking it down on a floured surface. And then I looked up a definition of 'technology'-- _the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry._ I can stretch that, I thought. Stretch it like a noodle.


End file.
